The BBC is making a show about the making of Grand Theft Auto

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Today the BBC has announced a new initiative called “Make It Digital” which is aiming to do all sorts of worthy activities with young people to encourage them to code – including the dishing out of free Micro Bit Raspberry-Pi type devices to 12 year olds.

Sounds pretty good, right? And fits in with the tradition that the corporation began the venerable old BBC Micro in the 1980s. One of the other announcements is that the BBC will be developing a “drama” based around Grand Theft Auto. Not stealing cars and murdering people – this isn’t HBO – but a drama around the creation of the game in the first place, presumably focusing on the Scottish studio that developed the series. Presumably it will be in the mould of “Micro Men” – which followed the battle between Sir Clive Sinclair’s Spectrum and Chris Curry, who invented the BBC Micro.

Whilst there are no further details on the GTA film at this point, it does give us an excuse to post this astonishingly technically accomplished piece of GTA “machinima” – a film made inside of GTA5:

Also in the “Make It Digital” season we’ll see the likes of Doctor Who, Radio 1, EastEnders, The One Show and BBC Children in Need all talking about the joy of coding, and encouraging their audiences to get involved.